In my continuing dialogue with sas4, he noted:
Unless it is Santana (or Schilling and Mussina 7 years ago), I will never pay for last year's stats.I would agree that you should never simply look at last year's statistics and bid the same price for any player, whether it is a hitter or a pitcher. However, you do need some sort of baseline, and "last year's stats" are the first think I do look at in order to consider what that baseline should be.
I thought I would look at the starting pitchers purchased in 2006 in LABR to see how predictable or unpredictable starting pitching truly is.
Top 10 Most Expensive Starting Pitchers: LABR N.L. 2006
| Pitcher | Cost | '06 $ | AP | JH | +/- | $05 |
| Pedro Martinez | $26 | $14 | $32 | $30 | -12 | $35 |
| Roy Oswalt | $26 | $27 | $29 | $31 | +1 | $29 |
| Jake Peavy | $26 | $19 | $31 | $27 | -7 | $31 |
| Ben Sheets | $25 | $13 | $25 | $21 | -12 | $20 |
| Chris Carpenter | $24 | $30 | $29 | $26 | +6 | $37 |
| Carlos Zambrano | $23 | $23 | $23 | $27 | 0 | $27 |
| Brandon Webb | $22 | $29 | $15 | $28 | +7 | $20 |
| Brett Myers | $21 | $17 | $9 | $14 | -4 | $22 |
| Jason Schmidt | $21 | $19 | $17 | $26 | -2 | $10 |
| Andy Pettitte | $20 | $12 | $18 | $18 | -8 | $35 |
| Average | $23 | $20 | $23 | $25 | -3 | $27 |
"06$" is what the player earned in 2006 according to Alex Patton. AP is Alex's bid limit. JH is John Hunt's limit in Sports Weekly.
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, this is what Alex Patton used to refer to as a "failure oriented sort". The 10 best expected anything should, as a rule, fail.
Yet how much of a failure is this group? These pitchers all returned something, even if it wasn't 100% of what the buyers in LABR expected. Getting an 87% return on your pitching investment ($20/$23) is great when it comes to pitchers.
2005 is the most aggressive price enforcer here, outpacing both Hunt and Patton. This is typical of these lists. People are paying money for last year, but they're never quite willing to pay par for pitching. They know at least one of these pitchers is going to bite them in the ass.
I'd argue that the market is being too conservative, but Alex's prices match the market on average, even if they don't match individually. The same can be said for how predictable this group is in a batch of 10. Pedro, Sheets and Prior are woefully unpredictable, but the group as a whole is emminently predictable.
The downside here is that there isn't the Johan Santana type pitcher that sas4 is talking about. Carpenter's $30 season is the best year you're going to see in the N.L., and that simply isn't enough to carry a Roto team's weaker pitchers. You have to speculate, especially in 5x5 leagues.
11-20 Most Expensive Starting Pitchers: LABR N.L. 2006
| Pitcher | Cost | '06 $ | AP | JH | +/- | $05 |
| Mark Prior | $19 | $-4 | $23 | $18 | -23 | $19 |
| Dontrelle Willis | $19 | $13 | $26 | $25 | -6 | $33 |
| Noah Lowry | $18 | $4 | $11 | $16 | -14 | $17 |
| Doug Davis | $17 | $5 | $12 | $16 | -12 | $18 |
| Tim Hudson | $17 | $7 | $24 | $21 | -10 | $14 |
| John Patterson | $17 | $4 | $9 | $15 | -13 | $22 |
| John Smoltz | $16 | $26 | $19 | $27 | +10 | $26 |
| Derek Lowe | $15 | $19 | $12 | $19 | +4 | $18 |
| Chris Young | $15 | $21 | $7 | $15 | +6 | $15 |
| Zach Duke | $14 | $5 | $11 | $15 | -9 | $13 |
| Average | $17 | $10 | $15 | $18 | -7 | $20 |
This group wasn't predictable at all. Whereas two of the 10 pitchers in the top group have a $10 +/- fluctuation, this group features six pitchers like that. And five of them are bad; only Smoltz saves this group from utter disaster.
Alex is closer to reality on this group. Even the historically conservative LABR market outspends him on average. John Hunt loves this group even more.
Once again, though, 2005 is the highest average here. The market, though, is closing in on the previous year's price, even though this group is more of a failure.
21-30 Most Expensive Starting Pitchers: LABR N.L. 2006
| Pitcher | Cost | '06 $ | AP | JH | +/- | $05 |
| Jon Lieber | $14 | $7 | $11 | $12 | -7 | $19 |
| Aaron Harang | $13 | $22 | $6 | $10 | +9 | $16 |
| Mark Mulder | $13 | $-7 | $15 | $17 | -20 | $14 |
| Matt Cain | $12 | $16 | $8 | $10 | +4 | $7 |
| Matt Morris | $12 | $7 | $11 | $9 | -5 | $13 |
| Brad Penny | $11 | $13 | $17 | $16 | +2 | $11 |
| Oliver Perez | $11 | $-8 | $1 | $8 | -19 | $-2 |
| Chris Capuano | $10 | $17 | $8 | $10 | +7 | $16 |
| Livan Hernandez | $10 | $5 | $11 | $7 | -5 | $12 |
| Odalis Perez | $10 | $-4 | $8 | $6 | -14 | $6 |
| Average | $12 | $7 | $10 | $11 | -5 | $11 |
Now the market is willing to pay more than what this group earned in 2005! Part of that is the odd $11 Oliver Perez purchase and part of that is the expected improvement of Matt Cain. But it's still surprising.
The rate of return here appears to be better. However, even though this group loses $5 per pitcher, it gets about the same amount on the dollar (58%) as the second grouping (59%). As far as double digit losses go, you're safer with this group, but you're not going to win with $7 pitchers.
LABR finally is outspending Hunt on these pitchers. That's not a good thing; it confirms that they probably should have put a couple of extra bucks into the top pitchers.
Do you have the stomach for another grouping?
31-40 Most Expensive Starting Pitchers: LABR N.L. 2006
| Pitcher | Cost | '06 $ | AP | JH | +/- | $05 |
| Greg Maddux | $9 | $16 | $11 | $9 | +7 | $15 |
| Ryan Madson | $8 | $-1 | $3 | $7 | -9 | $7 |
| David Bush | $7 | $18 | $6 | $8 | +11 | $7 |
| Brandon Claussen | $7 | $-3 | $8 | $13 | -10 | $8 |
| Jason Marquis | $7 | $-2 | $2 | $2 | -9 | $11 |
| Anthony Reyes | $7 | $3 | $4 | $9 | -4 | $2 |
| Justin Thomson | $7 | $-1 | $4 | $14 | -8 | $2 |
| Tom Glavine | $6 | $16 | $7 | $12 | +10 | $13 |
| Jae Seo | $6 | $-2 | $9 | $12 | -8 | $13 |
| Brandon Backe | $5 | $2 | $3 | $4 | -3 | $4 |
| Average | $7 | $5 | $6 | $9 | -2 | $8 |
Without the 2005 column, it wouldn't make as much sense. It's easy to see why Hunt would want to price enforce Seo and Glavine, even though LABR and Alex tell you to stop sooner.
This is another erratic grouping, despite only the $2 difference in price and earnings. Only two of 10 come within five of their bid prices.
41-50 Most Expensive Starting Pitchers: LABR N.L. 2006
| Pitcher | Cost | '06 $ | AP | JH | +/- | $05 |
| Cory Lidle | $5 | $6 | $6 | $2 | +1 | $9 |
| Paul Maholm | $5 | $0 | $2 | $3 | -5 | $5 |
| Scott Olsen | $5 | $15 | $2 | +10 | $0 | |
| Jeff Suppan | $5 | $9 | $7 | $9 | +4 | $14 |
| Steve Trachsel | $5 | $3 | $2 | $6 | -2 | $1 |
| Tomo Ohka | $4 | $3 | $7 | $5 | -1 | $11 |
| Brett Tomko | $4 | $6 | $3 | $10 | +2 | $6 |
| Jason Vargas | $4 | $-5 | $1 | $5 | -9 | $4 |
| Dave Williams | $4 | $-3 | $4 | -7 | $6 | |
| Kerry Wood | $4 | $1 | $15 | $8 | -3 | $6 |
| Average | $5 | $4 | $5 | $5 | -1 | $6 |
It's a subtle distinction, but the market and the touts are finally putting on the brakes. Everyone suspects that Jeff Suppan and Tomo Ohka aren't going to earn double digits again. At the very least, the market and the touts know that they're not going to pay double digits to find out. Only Trachsel and Olsen get bumps in pay. Everyone else gets paid for what they earned last year or is forced to take a pay cut.
It appears to me that sas4 is quite correct. You can't pay for last year's stats. If you are going to do this, pay for at least one stud pitcher and then fill in as cheaply as possible. This is what it sounds like sas4 did (though I don't have access to his prices).
This year I ended up with Santana, Bonser, Penny, Vazquez, Byrd, Lohse, and
Villanueva. Gaudin was an early season pick up. Excpet for Santana, there is not
one pitcher on this list that I really wanted except for Villanueva.
One dilemma is that you weren't going to get some of these guys under $10 in an A.L. or N.L. only league. Bonser, Penny and Vazquez all probably went for at least $10. Judging by the groupings above, you'll probably don't want to take too many dips into the $10 plus pool, unless you're drafting a Santana.
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